


cross this river to the other side

by defcontwo



Category: Captain America (Movies), Fake News
Genre: Coming Out, Epistolary, M/M, Social Media, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-30
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-03 22:48:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2890913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/defcontwo/pseuds/defcontwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Here is the truth about Captain America and the Howling Commandos that every World War II historian must come to accept at one point or another: we will never know everything. We won’t even come close. </p>
  <p>So much was lost with the untimely death of Captain America. While the man beneath the uniform sunk to the bottom of the North Atlantic, the myth lived on, only to grow bigger and more unwieldy as the years went by. Now, it is near impossible to tell fact from fiction, to separate out truth from propaganda.</p>
</blockquote><br/>In 1943, the Howling Commandos wrote goodbye letters to be given to their loved ones in the event of their deaths.<p>In 2014, Sharon Carter finds those letters in a tin can in an abandoned HYDRA base.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [cross this river to the other side](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4091803) by [finesea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/finesea/pseuds/finesea)



> thank you to: radialarch and osmia for beta-ing, augustbird for the pep talk I needed to get over myself and jump out of my comfort zone, and stitchingatthecircuitboard for her french translation.
> 
> title from bruce springsteen's "blood brothers" because I am nothing if not predictable.
> 
> all media and/or famous personalities impersonated in this work do not belong to me and were not in any way harmed in the making of this fic.

> [Excerpt from: Andrews, P. (2005). A Bullet in the Barrel of Your Best Guy’s Gun: Captain America, the Commandos and the Theatrics of War. New York: Columbia University Press.]
> 
> **FOREWORD**
> 
> Here is the truth about Captain America and the Howling Commandos that every World War II historian must come to accept at one point or another: we will never know everything. We won’t even come close. So much was lost with the untimely death of Captain America. While the man beneath the uniform sunk to the bottom of the North Atlantic, the myth lived on, growing bigger and more unwieldy as the years went by. Now, it is near impossible to tell fact from fiction, to separate out truth from propaganda.
> 
> Captain Steve Rogers and his life-long best friend turned wartime right hand man, Sergeant James Barnes, are forever entombed within their respective cold and icy graves. And unlike the surviving Screaming Eagles1, the remaining members of the Howling Commandos rarely, if ever, spoke of their fallen brothers-in-arms. 
> 
> They have, however, gone on to provide a wealth of influential accounts of their own experiences; the Howling Commandos were never afraid to speak openly about the struggles of coming home after the war was won. The frankness with which Private Gabriel Jones and Private James Morita spoke about racism in the military was crucial not only to the progress of 20th Century Civil Rights movements, but also to the evolution of critical analyses of race and history. Intersectional historical analysis owes a great deal to their efforts. 
> 
> As a unit, the Howling Commandos have given a grand total of three interviews on Barnes and Rogers. When asked, they've hemmed and hawed before breaking out into that same old story of how Sergeant Barnes, ever the sniper, liked to nap up high in the trees until the day an owl hooting in his face woke him up and he fell right out of the tree, hitting the ground with a thump and a trail of curses. 
> 
> It’s a fun story, to be sure, a nice reminder that war is more than just the blood and the fire and the hell of it, that it is also made up of the moments in between the fighting. But for hard-hitting, incisive historical analysis, it doesn’t exactly offer up much. 
> 
> The how and the why of it is a source of never-ending conspiracy for the overactive imagination. Is it because so much of Captain Rogers’s life was wrapped up in highly classified and potentially damning intelligence? Is it because the truth of who Captain Rogers really was would throw a spanner into the well-oiled Captain America propaganda machine? 
> 
> Or perhaps more poignantly, is it simply because the loss and the suffering endured by the Howling Commandos, as POWs and as soldiers and as brothers-in-arms, proved too much to ever be coherently parsed through and reflected upon? 
> 
> But this, we do know: every single Commando wrote a goodbye letter upon formation of their strike force. Those goodbye letters were tied together with twine and passed from Commando to Commando with each successive mission. It was a talisman, a good luck charm; it was insurance that those letters never had to be delivered. They contained, I have no doubt, precious insight into the hearts and minds of our heroes. 
> 
> But as luck and fate would have it, the letters were tucked inside the pocket of Sergeant Barnes’ coat as he fell to his death. 
> 
> The Howling Commandos have been asked time and time again if they could recall any details from the contents of those letters, but it was many years too late by the time people started asking the right questions. Sergeant Timothy Dugan once claimed, “Sure, I’d tell ya what my letter said. If I could remember it. I was drunk off my head when I was writing mine. Hell, we all were, so good luck with that.” 2
> 
> Even so, at the end of the day, we’d still be missing two very important pieces of the greater picture. 
> 
> Those lost letters are the great white whale of WWII historians everywhere; but unlike Ahab, sooner or later, we all must learn to let them go and push beyond them, to work to draw our own conclusions. 
> 
> And so, here you have it. Consider this book as my best attempt at letting them go.
> 
> 1\. Ambrose, S. (2001). _Band of brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest_. New York: Simon  & Schuster.  
> 2\. Tracy, B. (1998). _Going Commando: An Unabridged Collection of Interviews with the Howling Commandos_. New York: Marvel Historical Press. 

.

“The security in your apartment is fucking useless, you know that, right?”

Steve doesn’t turn away from the easel that’s propped in front of him. “Hello to you too, neighbor.” 

He’s sitting in front of a wide, open window too, as the bright mid-afternoon sun comes streaming through, and that’s a security hazard if there ever was one. If Sharon has anything to say about that, though, she keeps it to herself. 

The size of the windows was what sold him on this apartment in the first place. 

His apartment in Dupont was chosen to maximize safety. They made sure that it was in an active, well-lit part of town. They made sure to cover all of the exits and choke points, and he was told that he should pick a place with minimal visibility to deter potential assassins. 

But Nick Fury still got shot straight through the wall, so he’ll take his fucking chances. 

Sharon hovers behind him, peering over his shoulder at the easel in front of him. On it is a half-finished charcoal portrait of Jim Morita, laid out in broad strokes and bold, black lines. 

“You’re pretty good, you know.”

Steve grunts, rubbing the heel of his hand across the paper, smoothing away excess charcoal dust. Jim never did smile in photographs. Not in newsreels, either. He used to say that he wouldn’t give them the pleasure of faking it, not when he didn’t have anything to smile about. 

But every once in a while, when a day was going a little better than usual, when a joke landed just right, Jim would smile real bright and wide, dimpling both cheeks. 

Steve’s been trying to get that smile right for days. Every time he tries, it comes out a lopsided, insincere mess. He’ll have to start over again. Jim deserves better than this. 

“How was the HYDRA op?” Steve asks, tearing the portrait off the easel and placing a blank, new sheet in its place. Looking at that white space, it’s easier to believe that he’ll do better next time. 

“A bust, mostly. It looked like it’d been abandoned for years. Anything that wasn’t tied down was taken in for evidence but it’s mostly just a bunch of outdated crap. Except for this -- this may be outdated but it’s definitely not crap, not if it’s what I think it is.” 

Sharon tosses a small, round tin can at Steve. 

Steve turns it over in his hands, giving it a little shake. It barely makes a muted, thumping sound. Papers, then. “So, not a HYDRA piggy bank, huh?” 

“Yeah, you know me, Steve, I get a real kick out of stealing lunch money from Nazis,” Sharon says. She kicks out and nudges at his shin with the heavy toe of her left boot. “Open it, Rogers.” 

Steve pries open the top, setting the lid aside and pulling the papers out. They’re envelopes, at least ten in all, tied together with fraying twine, and spattered with blood and water stains. 

“Is it what I think it is?” Sharon asks, but it’s softer this time, so he must look as sideswiped as he feels. 

Steve swallows around a lump in his throat and his hands shake, causing his fingers to fumble as he unties the thin twine holding all of the envelopes together. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.” 

“HYDRA must’ve taken them off Barnes when they found him and stored the letters as evidence,” Sharon says. She pauses, waiting for the flinch, but it doesn’t come. Steve won’t let it. 

Sharon nods, pressing on. “There was too much turnover within HYDRA over the years, though. The letters probably got lost and shoved aside until nobody could even remember where they came from in the first place.” 

Seventy-something years ago, the stationary that Dum Dum had snuck out of Colonel Phillips’s desk had felt thick, weighted, the paper heavy and decadent. He remembers thinking that it had to be the most expensive paper he’d ever held in his life. Now, it is yellowed and brittle beneath his fingertips. 

Steve tamps down the urge to pull them closer to his chest, afraid that he might tear something. “Can I keep them?” 

Sharon shrugs. “Technically, no, because I was supposed to submit everything I found to the CIA for evidence. But what the CIA doesn’t know won’t hurt them.”

“What if they find out?”

“Then they find out. They’re not gonna toss me out on my ass for this. It’s not exactly a high security breach and I know too much. Keep the letters, don’t keep them. Do with them what you will. They’re yours, neighbor.” 

Steve ducks his head so she doesn’t see the tears gathering in the corner of his eyes but he guesses maybe she sees them anyways. “Thanks.” 

“Hey, a question to satisfy my own curiosity -- is there a letter to my aunt in there?” 

“A letter? No. I….she was angry with me when I sat down to write this.”

“Let me guess: the fondue thing?” Sharon asks. 

Steve grimaces. She knows so much more about him than he does her. It’s funny, how he keeps thinking he’ll get used to that. “I wasn’t sure what I could say, to make it right, so I drew instead. I drew a portrait of her. It’s….I guess I thought, if the last thing she ever got from me was a portrait of her exactly as I saw her, then she would know that...that I didn’t really mean it, what I said, then she’d know that I’d always thought the world of her.”

“But she never saw it.”

“But she never saw it,” Steve confirms. “Forgave me anyways, I guess. I hope.” 

“She did,” Sharon says. “You know she did.” 

Steve huffs a laugh, but it is a small and bitter thing. 

Sharon reaches out a hand but then pulls it back just as quickly. She’s bad at this. That’s okay, though, because he is too. “Take care of yourself, Steve.” 

“You too, Sharon.” 

“And seriously. At least change your fucking locks, they were embarrassingly easy to pick.”

.

MNN Opinion @MNNOpinion  
Countdown to the Winter Soldier Trial - where do you stand?

FOX NEWS @FoxNews  
BUCKY BARNES A TRAITOR, SHOULD BE PUNISHED AS SUCH. Tune in tonight for more, 9 ET/8 C. 

FiveThirtyEight @FiveThirtyEight  
Think you’ll see an innocent verdict in the Barnes trial? Think again. Here are the odds: http://tinyurl.com/5brlr6

Jonah Jameson @JJameson  
How much do we really know about Sergeant Barnes? Not enough, that’s what I say. It’s a guilty as charged for me. 

Tom Raymond @ToroR  
Oh c’mon, they’re not gonna really execute a national hero, right? Right??

.

“Opened your present yet, Rogers?”

Steve tucks the phone between his ear and his shoulder, moving to strain the pasta that he’s been cooking. “I see you and Sharon have been talking behind my back again.” 

He left the pasta boiling for too long, though, and the noodles look limp and wan in the colander. Steve heaves a sigh, dumping the pasta into a bowl and pouring out the heated up jar of sauce over it. 

“You make it sound so sinister,” Natasha teases. “What are you moaning and groaning about over there?” 

“Nothing, I just…” Steve trails off, trying and failing to find a clean fork before settling on the nearest spoon as good enough. “You know, I’m ninety-six years old and I still can’t cook worth a damn.” 

“You’re not ninety-six, you’re twenty-seven. That makes you ten years younger than Clint and he routinely eats Chef Boyardee out of the can,” Natasha says, and then she pauses, filling the space between them with a pointed silence. She'll never just come out and ask what’s really bothering him -- it’s not her way -- but she must know by now that if she waits it out long enough, he’ll come around to it. 

“I haven’t read the letters yet,” Steve admits, before shoveling a spoonful of pasta in his mouth so he doesn’t have to keep talking. 

“Are you going to?” 

“D’you think I should?” Steve mumbles around his pasta. 

Natasha’s only answer is to scoff into her phone. 

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, Nat,” Steve says, dumping the bowl of pasta to the side and tipping his head back against the kitchen cupboards with a soft thump. “The trial is next week. Bucky’s in a high security detention facility outside DC and they’re not letting me see him. If I tried to break in, it would only hurt his case. And at the end of the day, I gotta make peace with the fact that this is what he wanted. He turned himself in. So, what now?” 

“Maybe now you do nothing.” 

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed this but I’m not all that good at doing nothing,” Steve says. 

“Your problem is, you think that turning himself in means that Barnes has given up. But maybe he hasn’t. Sometimes you have to throw yourself straight into the fire just to see if you can come out the other side unscathed,” Natasha says. “You can understand _that_ , at least.” 

“Do you think he’ll lose?” Steve says. The words barely make it out of him, coming out scratched and worn and barely louder than a whisper. 

He’s been afraid to say it out loud. He’s been afraid to so much as think it, for fear of making the possibility real because it cannot come to this, it cannot come to Bucky locked away and rotting in a cell for the rest of their unnaturally long lives. Or worse, executed for treason. Not after everything they’ve lost, not after all the blood they had to spill just to find each other again. 

“You know what, Rogers?” Natasha says. “I wouldn’t bet against him.”

.

Steve finishes the pasta, leaving the dirty dishes in the sink for later. He starts another portrait of Jim before abandoning it just as quickly, tearing it up and shoving the pieces into the trash.

He sits on the couch with today’s paper and draws doodles into the margins of the box scores. He goes for a run. 

He does not read the letters. 

It is seven days and twelve hours until the Winter Soldier trial.

.

Steve sits down in front of his easel and decides that maybe it’s time to try something new. Steady hands scratch out the familiar lines of Dum Dum’s bowler, and the mustache quickly follows, but Steve can’t manage to get the dimensions of the cigar just right. He abandons the half-finished portrait of Dum Dum, moving onto Gabe and then Monty and then Dernier and then circling right back around to Jim. By the time the sun sets, he is sitting in front of a single, broad piece of paper covered in barely finished portraits, with an ear there and a mustache there, like a Picasso painting gone awry.

Steve’s stomach groans in protest; he hasn’t eaten since breakfast. His phone is lit up with four missed calls from Sam and a handful of unopened texts. 

It is six days and nine hours until the Winter Soldier trial.

.

Steve runs.

He runs twice a day every day for three days straight. He runs all the way across the bridge and through Manhattan until he hits Harlem and then loops around and comes right back, only to run a ring around Prospect Park a couple of times for good measure. He runs until he is drenched with sweat and his hair sticks to his head and his lungs start to ache and burn like they did when he was young and small with a will too big for the bones that contained him. 

He runs until his sneakers give out on him and he trips over the loose flap at the front of his right foot, falling to the cold, hard cement with an unceremonious thud. 

He’s at a busy intersection in Prospect Heights and several people have their phones out, taking pictures. Steve eases himself to his feet and walks the whole way home, shamefaced, and when he walks through his front door, the first thing he sees is that misshapen portrait of the Howling Commandos. 

Jim deserved better. That was the thought that had started that project in the first place. That Jim deserved better.

They all deserve better, every last one of them.

Jesus, he’s been such a fucking coward about this. Sooner or later, you gotta learn how to look your ghosts in the eye dead on.

Steve picks up the packet of letters from his kitchen table, and opens up the first one at random, and finally starts to read. 

It is three days until the Winter Soldier trial.

.

Tommy,

Do you remember that time when I was 12 and you were 8 and Dad took us on that trip up to San Francisco. How he didn’t give us any warning about it beforehand, just woke us up one day with all our bags packed and a couple of bus tickets clutched tightly in his hands. Some days, I still wonder if I hallucinated the whole damn thing -- the sight of him standing there in the dim morning light, this curious expression on his face, like he was angry about something but didn’t know how to show it. I’d never seen him angry before, not even when Mom died, and I know you hadn’t either. Our father, the strong, gentle doctor -- I didn’t think angry was in his vocabulary. 

I remember your small hand clutched tightly in mine, the way you shivered as a cold breeze went right through us as we stood by the Bay, overlooking the water. I didn’t know what we were supposed to be looking at for the longest time, so I kept squinting in the distance and pretending like I could pick out shapes in the clouds. That was the day that Dad told us about Angel Island, about the time that he spent there. About the awful things that he saw there. I remember how it felt like he spoke for hours, you know how it is when you’re a kid and you get impatient, how seconds can turn into hours. I remember looking up at him, the way his whole face was haloed by the hazy sunshine, how it was foggy and grey and then the sun broke right through it. I was surprised to see tears streaming down his face, as quiet as he was about it. I don’t think you even saw it. You were a little too young, I think, to really get what he was trying to say. 

I wasn’t. 

I’m about to do a stupid fucking thing, Tommy. It’s a real stupid fucking thing and I know it walking in. 

War may be lot of shitty things but at least it’s not an internment camp. At least it’s not a detention facility and at least it’s not a fucking Nazi prison for POWs. 

If I’m gonna die here, if I’m gonna die anywhere, it’s gonna be on my own terms. It’s not gonna be behind bars. 

Try to remember that when you get angry with me for this. 

Your brother,  
Jim

.

Ma,

You’re never going to get this letter. I’m writing it as a promise to myself that I will say all of the things that I’ve never said to you before when I see you next. 

So here goes nothing. 

Thank you. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you. I wouldn’t be anywhere if it weren’t for you and I didn’t see it, not really, not until I saw myself staring down the barrel of a Kraut gun. 

I’ll never forget the look on your face the first time I hopped on that bus to DC. Me, the first one in the family to ever go to college and you looked at me like you were just as proud as you were terrified, like you weren’t sure if you were ever gonna see me alive again. I remember how I thought that you were just being silly. I was going further north, not further south, why the hell does she look so scared? 

I remember how you had that same exact look in your eye the day I shipped out. I didn’t get it then either. 

I do now. I’m sorry that I didn’t before. 

Here’s another apology: I’m gonna do it all over again. I’m gonna get home and I’m gonna tell you all of these things and I’m gonna walk right out that door one more time and scare the hell out of you all over again and I’m sorry for it, Ma, I am, but I’ve got this burning in my veins like I can’t stop moving, can’t stop doing. 

There’s a lot of work to be done and I guess I figure that if I survived that camp, if I can survive this war, then hell, maybe I can survive anything. 

That’s my promise to you, Ma. That I can survive anything. 

Love,  
Gabe 

PS: There’s a fella here, Dernier. Weird little man, obsessed with explosives, you’ll absolutely hate him, but he’s promised to show me France after all this is done. When he does, I’m going to find a way to take you with me, just like you’ve always wanted.

.

Loretta,

Do you remember the first day we met? We were paired together so that I could practice my French with another student. That was the first day we met but it wasn’t the first day I ever saw you. 

The first day I ever saw you, you were standing out in front of a lecture hall arguing with a professor in loud, angry French. It must have been your French literature professor, I remember how you always said you couldn’t stand him. Too fussy, you always said. Fussy and old fashioned, that’s what it was. 

Your cheeks were flushed red and your fists were balled at your sides and you didn’t look like you were gonna give a goddamn inch, not for anything. I knew right away that I had to meet you. 

I’ve never told you that before. I’ve never told anyone that before. I was scared to, all this time. 

You know, I switched to French because of you. I’d like to think that it’s because of you that I’m here, that it’s because of you that I’m still living and breathing and planning to go out there and enter this war all over again. 

I don’t put much stock in God, not the way my Ma does, but I have to admit that in this, God’s grace was working in my favor the day I first saw you. 

You gotta know that you don’t owe me anything, Loretta, but when I get back, I’d like to buy you a drink in thanks. 

Your friend,  
Gabe

.

My dearest Jackie,

I’ve known since the day you were born that you’re a fighter. That one day, you will grew up strong and beautiful and resilient and capable of terrifyingly grand things. 

Knowing that should scare me. It should scare any father. It scares your Mum sometimes, I know, because she gets this look in her eyes like she’s sure one day you’re going to break her heart. 

I’m doing enough of that as it is, so do try not to break her heart anymore than I already have; and if you must, do so gently. 

Take care of her. Take care of yourself. 

Know that I’ve done it all for you. Not just to keep you safe but to keep you fighting. 

All my love,  
your Father

.

Si je dois verser jusqu'à ma dernière goutte de sang dans cette guerre, je le ferai en te libérant. Je le ferai dans la certitude de la victoire, parce que je ne veux pas être un nouveau foutu Roland, ma chère France, je ne donnerai pas à ces enfoirés de Nazis la satisfaction d'un autre martyr futile.

Donnez cette lettre à M. de Gaulle, si vous devez la donner à quelqu'un, sinon brûlez là, et dispersez les cendres dans les rues de Paris, ça suffira.

\- Jacques Dernier 

_If I’m to spill my last blood in this war, I will spill it freeing you. I will spill it in certain victory because I will not be your next fucking Roland, dear France, I will not give those Nazi fuckers the satisfaction of a futile martyr._

_Give this letter to Mister de Gaulle, if you must give it to someone, or else burn it and scatter the ashes in the streets of Paris and call it done._

_\- Jacques Dernier_

.

Laura,

I’m supposed to write you a goodbye letter. That’s what Jim says, that’s the rule. It’s for good luck, he says. I don’t know where he comes up with this shit. He’s from California, go fucking figure. They must think up all kinds of crazy ideas out there, I guess. 

But I’m the one sitting here, seven beers deep and writing out this letter with my chicken scratch, so maybe I’m a little crazy too. I’d have to be to do what I’m doing. 

Sometimes the right thing to do is the crazy thing. That’s what my Pappy used to say. Born and bred in Boston, so he doesn’t even have the fucking California thing as an excuse. 

Hell, neither do I. 

If you’re reading this, that means I’m dead. 

I’m so sorry that I went and died on you, darling. 

And for swearing in my last letter to you, I’m sorry for that too. 

Yours,  
Dum Dum

.

The words blur before Steve’s eyes and it takes him a second to realize that it’s because he’s crying, that those water stains spreading across Dum Dum’s letter are new, that they’re coming from him.

It’s not the first time since he woke up here that he’s cried and it won’t be the last, but it’s the first time that he just lets it happen. Steve hunches forward, as hot, wet tears slip through his fingertips and finally, finally lets himself mourn. 

He mourns celebrations that could have been. He mourns weddings that he never got to see and mothers that he never got to thank and sweethearts that he’d always heard so much about but never got the chance to meet face-to-face. He mourns Jim’s dimpled smile and Monty’s stupid jokes and everything else in between that he should’ve been there for but wasn’t. 

Steve mourns for himself, for once, and it feels a little like his insides have been scooped out and replaced anew. 

There are just three letters left: his own and Bucky’s. 

Steve bypasses his own letter to carefully pluck out the two that Bucky wrote; one to his eldest sister and one to Steve, both written in the same, familiar neat handwriting that Steve would know anywhere. 

Steve takes a deep breath, as if the very act might pull strength into his lungs, and opens the first letter.

.

This is what Steve knows about Bucky Barnes:

He had a hard time seeing eye to eye with his parents in his later years; they were always on his case about moving on, about getting married to a nice girl. It was an argument that came up often enough that in a lot of ways, Bucky saw joining the Army as a reprieve, as a chance to forge something new that they couldn’t find fault with. 

He loved his sisters, proudly and fiercely and with a dedication that could be as freeing as it was smothering. He taught them how to read and write and multiply and he woke up early every day for years to help them get ready for school, work or hangover be-damned. 

He talked in his sleep and sometimes he lied to his Ma about keeping kosher and he had this really annoying habit of humming out of the blue without ever realizing he was doing it. 

He was a sloppy, affectionate drunk and he never shut up during sex and he kissed Steve like he could spend the rest of his life doing exactly that and never get bored of it. 

This is what the world knows about Bucky Barnes: 

Not much, really. 

And that’s the whole problem, isn’t it?

.

Steve peels off his sweaty, clinging running gear and hops into the shower, turning the dial all the way to the right so that the heat goes as high as it can. He doesn’t linger in it, making fast work out of scrubbing from head to toe until his whole body is flushed pink.

He dresses quickly and stands over the sink eating a frozen pizza, giving little thought to how it tastes. Everything in his world has narrowed down to what needs to happen next. 

He finally knows what needs to happen next. 

Monty died in ‘96. Jim, a year after that. Gabe passed the week before the Chitauri Invasion because time is ruthless and cruel and always working against him. 

Dum Dum still lives in Boston with his children. Dernier couldn’t be pried away from Paris if the world depended on it. 

Steve has their contact info. They’ve exchanged stilted letters and brief phone calls that Steve always ended just as the lump would start to form in his throat. 

It was easy to tell himself that they didn’t need him intruding on their lives. The truth is this: forming connections was never all that easy for Steve. But with the Howling Commandos, he found friends and he found brothers and he found men that he would die for. 

He found men that he would kill for if just to keep them safe and happy and whole. 

He’s proud of them. The five of them, they went home and they accomplished something that he’s not sure he knows how to do just yet: they lived. They did a whole lot more than just go home and make do; they went home and they thrived. They worked to build where others sought to tear down and they never, ever stopped fighting. 

God, he is so fucking proud of them. 

He’s never told them that but maybe it’s time that he start. 

Steve picks up the phone and starts dialing.

.

Sharon is his last phone call of the day and she picks up on the second ring.

“You told me the letters were mine to do whatever I wanted with them. Did you really mean that?” Steve asks, diving right in before Sharon gets the chance to speak. 

Sharon rolls with it, as usual. “You know I did. What are you planning, Rogers?” 

“I’m going to leak them to the public.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Yeah, ‘cause that would be the most shocking thing the world learns about me this week. That I drool in my sleep.”

The Opinion Pages | OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR  
 **Will the Lost Howling Commandos’ Farewells Be Enough to Save Barnes?**  
by Christine Everhart 

Where were you when the Howling Commandos’ letters first went live on Friday night? I was digging into some Indian takeout and queueing up an old episode of the Wire when all of a sudden my phone started buzzing and lit right up like Times Square at night. If you are anything like me, you read all of them in one sitting and then turned right back around and re-read them at least three or four times. 

Where or how the letters were recovered remains to be seen. Twelve hours before the letters were leaked via Reddit, top historian Jamie Miller, who specializes in the authentification of historical documents, woke up to find the letters in question sitting on her doorstep in a tin can. The tin was accompanied only by a short note, written in neat, block letters that match the handwriting of Captain Steve Rogers’s own letter. Miller has since corroborated the other letters by comparing the handwriting to other primary documents released over the years by Jim Morita, Gabe Jones, et al. The insignia on the left hand corner of every letter comes from a British printing company that’s been out of business since 1963. The paper is faded and cracking. For all intents and purposes, the letters are over seventy years old. For now, it looks as though we can take them as the real deal. 

With the origin of the letters verified, now we turn to the most pressing question: what do they mean for the Winter Soldier trial? Captain Rogers has made no substantial effort to cover his tracks. We know that he was the one who leaked the letters; what we don’t know is why. 

But I have a good guess. 

Media coverage of the Winter Soldier trial has thus far been relatively one-note. Those involved with the prosecution have worked hard to push aside the leaked SHIELD files that contained information on the extensive torture and apparent brainwashing that Barnes endured during his second stint as a HYDRA POW. 

The narrative crafted leading up to the trial has been one of outrage. Cries of traitor have emerged from just about every corner of the national consciousness. I can understand why. The HYDRA attacks in DC led not only to civilian casualties but also to the uprooting of hundreds of innocent Washingtonians whose jobs and homes and roads were summarily destroyed. This is in addition to the fact that the Winter Soldier is responsible for the assassinations of at least twenty high-level American scientists, spies and businessmen throughout the Cold War. 

Two hours after the letters went live, the activist group known only as Anonymous dug up Barnes’s leaked SHIELD files and started re-circulating them. Once they hit Reddit and Tumblr, it was all over. Those files were now every bit as ubiquitous as the letters. Juxtapose the two and the question that we’re left with is this: was Barnes the man with the gun, or just the gun? 

The letters served to remind us that he is human; that he is more than just a Cold War boogeyman or a comic book villain done up in black and white. They reminded us that we all grew up in a world where the name James Barnes was synonymous with courage, loyalty and heroism. 

So, will the doubt cast in his favor be enough to change the tide of public sentiment? Will it be enough to save him? 

We’ll find out on Monday.

.

  
code switch | FRONTIERS OF RACE, CULTURE AND ETHNICITY

**JIM MORITA, THE INTERNMENT CAMPS AND THE ERASURE OF OUR OWN HISTORY OF ANTI-JAPANESE RACISM**  
by MPR Staff

January 5, 2015 4:11 PM EST • Jim Morita’s heartfelt farewell letter to little brother Tommy reminds us that WWII was not all bright acts of heroism for the U.S. -- that we too engaged in systematic acts of racial oppression against our Japanese-American citizens. 

**TWO YEARS ON FROM THE DEATH OF FAMED CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST GABE JONES, WOULD HE BE PROUD OF US?**  
by  Leila Taylor

January 5, 2015 5:02 PM EST • Gabe Jones lived to see the election (and re-election) of President Barack Obama. But to pretend that we live in a post-racial society would be disingenuous. Not when we turn on the news every day to evidence to the contrary. Join me as we reflect: what would Gabe Jones think about where we are today? 

.

TheBacklot @TheBackLot  
Thinking about changing our name again, this time to AfterCap -- what do you think, fellas?

FiveThirtyEight @FiveThirtyEight  
We’ve been up all night crunching those numbers. Want new odds on the Barnes trial? Here you go: http://tinyurl.com/5brlr6

Darl Clove @DarlClove  
There’s no debate to be had here. Rogers should be stripped of rank and title immediately. He is unacceptable as an American symbol. 

Eli Bradley @EBradley  
Clove is full of shit but that’s nothing new. His type always are. 

Eli Bradley @EBradley This country likes to lock up the innocent and absolve the guilty. Execute Barnes and we get to pretend that HYDRA is done. 

Eli Bradley @EBradley It’s a nice, pretty lie to tell, right? That Nazis/white supremacists aren’t real anymore. That they aren’t still in power right now. 

Eli Bradley @EBradley Only difference with this case is that it’s a white, Jewish (gay? bisexual?) man instead of a black man like it usually is. 

**Toro Raymond, Kate Bishop and Rikki Barnes followed Eli Bradley**.

.

**stevengrogersdaily** reblogged **wemerryfew**  


> the conservative media is throwing around phrases like “invasion of privacy” and “obstruction of justice” as a thin smokescreen for their outrage over what cap did. 
> 
> so let’s just break this bullshit down for a second. 
> 
> 1\. dernier and dugan are both still pretty active and kicking. all of the howlies have families, grandchildren, people who are accountable to the preservation of their legacy. do you really think that we wouldn’t have heard from them by now if cap had done this without their permission?  
>  2\. obstruction of justice? i think you mean: “oh shit, we can’t just pretend that barnes is an automaton programmed to kill that we can throw away and forget about.” barnes is the scapegoat and we all know it. no one really wants to think about just how insidious HYDRA’s infiltration really was so what, we execute one man and call it done? no thanks. that doesn’t exactly make me feel safe.  
>  3\. let’s be honest here. we all know what this is really about. cap’s entire legacy was constructed without his permission and outside of his control. they’ve been claiming him for years and years, propping up his symbol to justify policies he never would’ve stood for. now, he’s alive and well and taking control of his own image and guess what? it’s not at all the easily packaged, prototypical patriot that everyone was expecting.  
>  4\. also, you know, there’s the Other Thing, you all know what i’m talking about but that’s a whole other post worth of freaking out entirely, so feel free to jump onto it here.  
> 

  
#THIS #steve rogers #the howling commandos #barnes trial 2015

.

“So, Googled yourself lately?”

Steve grimaces, reaching up a hand to worry at the wrinkle between his brows. “No, not really.”

“You should. Apparently a couple of gossip blogs seem pretty convinced that I’m your latest rebound fling. My mother keeps sending me text messages demanding to know if it’s true or not,” Sam says. 

“Oh God,” Steve says. The back of his neck flushes warm; he is suddenly and furiously mortified at the idea that Sam’s mother is somewhere out there, currently under the belief that he’s been taking advantage of her son. Steve collapses forward onto Sam’s kitchen countertop and groans. 

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Sam says. “Please, feel free to pick up my phone and reply for me any time. I’m not afraid to lay all this on you, don’t think I won’t. My mother is a terrifying woman when she wants to be.” 

“I don’t doubt it,” Steve says. He shifts to prop his chin up on one hand, dragging his gaze up and down Sam’s frame exaggeratedly. “Alright, Wilson. I guess if the gossip blogs say so, it might as well be true. How about it?”

Sam throws a dishtowel at Steve and it hits him in the face. “Yeah, sure. You just keep pretending like you weren’t trying to hit on me at the National Mall.” 

Steve shrugs. “I can neither confirm nor deny these allegations.” 

“Unfortunately for you, I’m getting too old to go around dating dumb white boys. College Sam has so, so many regrets. But if you’re ever in a position to pass on Colonel Rhodes’s number, you know. You do kinda owe me, man,” Sam says. 

Steve makes a face. “You’d probably have to spend time around Tony Stark.” 

“Huh,” Sam says. “You don’t think that’s optional?” 

“Probably not.” 

“Too bad,” Sam muses. “Give me his number anyways. I’ll take my chances.” 

“Your funeral, pal,” Steve says. 

“I’m gonna send my mother a Snapchat of you drooling into my couch as proof,” Sam warns. 

Steve snorts. “Yeah, ‘cause that would be the most shocking thing the world learns about me this week. That I drool in my sleep.”

“Look, man. I’m not saying that you made the decision to let the whole world know about your illegal gay sex life but….wait, no, that _is_ exactly what you did,” Sam says. “What, do you regret doing it?” 

“It’s not….no, I don’t regret it, no, it’s just,” Steve says, pausing. There are words, now, for what he is. Complicated, well thought-out words that come with clean-cut definitions and carry all the weight of a proper label but they stick in the back of his throat, still. Too much of his life has been neatly meted out and organized to suit other people’s needs. If there’s a line between telling the truth and still getting to keep parts of himself for himself, he hasn’t figured out where it lies just yet. 

“People want a story,” Steve says, finally. “But stories aren’t messy. And sometimes -- sometimes I just want my life to be messy again.” 

“You don’t call _this_ messy?” Sam says, raising both eyebrows. “You’re a real weirdo, Rogers.” 

Steve throws his hands up in surrender. “Yeah, you wouldn’t be the first to say it.” 

“And I won’t be the last,” Sam says. “Okay, you want a beer? I bought the Dogfish Head IPA so maybe we have a fighting chance at getting you a little bit drunk if you skip dinner and gun it like a broke college freshman.” 

“Speaking from experience?” 

“Obviously,” Sam says, tossing Steve a beer. “Wait, hold on. My sister stole my bottle opener when she last visited, I’m gonna need that back.” 

Steve hands his beer back over to Sam, puzzled. “You know I can open both of these myself, right?”

“Yeah, sure you can. Probably with your biceps and all but you know, some of us have evolved beyond brute strength, man,” Sam says, hooking the bottom edge of one beer cap under the other and applying pressure until there’s give and the cap pops right off. “Ta-da! Are you impressed? You look impressed.” 

“I’m a little impressed,” Steve admits, pulling the cap off his own bottle. “Where’d you learn that?” 

Sam smirks around the lip of the beer bottle. “From a Dutch boy in a hostel while backpacking through Europe after sophomore year.” 

“College Sam has so many regrets?” 

“So, _so_ many,” Sam says, “but that ain’t one of them.” 

Steve huffs a laugh. He really had no idea how lucky he was the day he met Sam. “Cheers to that, I guess,” Steve says, leaning over to clink their bottles together. 

“Hey,” Sam says, suddenly serious as his eyes catch onto Steve’s gaze. Sam makes a point not to play therapist with his friends, Steve knows, but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s damn good at this, at looking right through you and getting down to the heart of you whether you want him to or not. “You’re gonna be okay for tomorrow, right?” 

“I guess we’ll find out.”

.

Steve doesn’t even try to sleep.

He lies on Sam’s couch and stares at the ceiling, tracing out patterns through irregularities in the paint. A print-out of Bucky’s letter to him is folded up and tucked into the pocket of his shorts. The ink is already faded and wrinkled from how many times he’s read and re-read it, and it’s formed deep creases in the paper. 

He hopes Bucky can still look him in the eye after what he’s done. He’s taken their lives, taken the fervent, ugly reality of it all and laid it bare in front of the whole wide world. Bucky might not forgive him and Steve’s not sure if he can blame him for that. 

But if Bucky has the chance to make that decision for himself, it’ll be worth it. 

Steve blinks. If he turns his head and squints just-so, the grooves in the paint rearrange themselves. From this new angle, he can almost make out the silhouette of the Brooklyn Bridge. 

Steve drags a hand forward through his hair, tugging at the ends as he lets out a low, frustrated groan into the dim silence of Sam’s living room. He hasn’t heard from Dum Dum or Dernier since Friday morning. Their voices had come through cracked and weathered over the receiver and it’s still such a dissonance after all this time, how he expected them to sound young, hearty and hale. Do they talk to each other often? Or do they avoid it just as much as he does for that very same reason? 

He doubts it. They’d be smarter about it than him. Wisened too, probably. 

They’ve lived so many years without him and that knowledge will never stop stinging no matter how many times he tries to peel back the bandage to let it heal all the way through. 

The air is warm and dry from the heater and it makes Steve flushed all over and overheated for all that he’s lying there in shorts and not much else. The urge to go for a run rises; Steve pushes it down. He’s done enough running for several lifetimes now. 

He pushes open a window instead and breathes in the sharp, DC winter air. The beer gave him five minutes of a warm, flushed light-headedness before it faded just as quickly into sober and hungry, but as he pulls the night air into his lungs to clear the heaviness from his head, Steve thinks maybe it affected him a little more than he realized. 

He has Sam, now. Natasha and Sharon, too. He’s not alone anymore and he may never be alone again. Not the way he was after they dug him up out of the ice, when every single day was a gnawing, gaping nothingness stretching out ahead of him one right after the other. 

A couple of weeks into the future, a SHIELD psychiatrist sat Steve down and explained to him the importance of forgetting the past. He talked about how the Commandos moved on, about how maybe it was time that Steve start thinking about doing it too. They didn’t let his ghost keep them from living their lives; Steve shouldn’t either. 

In retrospect, Steve’s pretty sure that guy was a Nazi. What a load of crap. 

Moving on doesn’t have anything to do with forgetting the past. He doesn’t want to forget the past. He just wants to get to the point where thinking of it doesn’t feel like a stab to the gut. 

Maybe he’s getting there, finally. Slowly but surely. 

Steve slams the window shut and flips on a small light before flopping back onto the couch, digging Bucky’s letter out of his pocket. He unfolds it with steady fingers, careful not to tear the paper as he settles in to read it one more time.

.

[The Barnes Letters: Unedited (2015, January 5). The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com.]

The following letter is addressed to Barnes’s eldest sister, Rebecca Barnes-Proctor, born 1926 in Brooklyn, New York. Barnes-Proctor joined the WAC during the tail-end of the war working as a technician in the Philippines and later went on to become a journalist for several major newspapers. Barnes-Proctor passed away in 2004. She is survived by her son and three grandchildren. 

_Becca,_

_Do you want to hear something dumb, Becca-Girl? I was lying on that table, and as those Nazi fuckers were torturing me, pumping me full of all sorts of fuck-knows-what so that it felt like my whole insides were burning up from the inside out, the very first and last thought that I had over and over again was ‘who’s gonna braid Becca’s hair now?’_

_See, I told you it was dumb. I’ve been away in the Army for years. I’m sure you’ve figured out how to do it yourself or maybe Ma does it for you now, I don’t know, but taking care of you was my one consistent job for as long as I can remember. It was an easy job, too. I was good at it and I didn’t have to shoot anyone to get good at it, either._

_I’m sorry. I’m so damn sorry, Becca, this isn’t the sort of letter you should get from me. I’m your big brother. I’m supposed to write you cheerful things, write you good, honorable things about how it was all worth it in the end, how I don’t regret a damn thing. I don’t regret joining the Army, Becca, but there’s still so fucking much that I regret._

_I think maybe you’re the one who knows me best in the world so I hope you don’t mind the unburdening of a dead man’s heart._

_I’m scared, Becca. I hate to say it. I feel like a coward even as I write the words down. But I’m scared. I don’t want to die out here._

_But I can’t walk away, either. I can’t let them win. I can’t let them get away with the things they’ve done. And I can’t let Steve go off and fight this fucking war all on his own. He’ll get himself killed._

_Pop is gonna cry. You know he is. He’s gonna blame himself too. Ma will understand. She’ll cry too but she walks around with those last few letters from her sister in Prague tucked in her skirt pocket every single day, so she’ll understand. Between the two of you, I know you’ll be able to help him get through this. The twins are too young. Probably one day they won’t even remember me that much and that’s okay. It’s for the best._

_Chin up, my little Becca-Girl. You’ll be okay too. You always are._

_All my love,_  
Bucky  


The following letter is addressed to Captain Steven Grant Rogers, born 1918 in Brooklyn, New York.  
 _  
Steve,_

_It’s a good thing I’ll be dead by the time anyone reads this letter because everything I’m about to say here will get the both of us kicked right out of the Army. Well, it’ll get me kicked out. You can just tell them it was all my fault and they’ll leave you alone. I’ll do that for you, you know I will. What do I give a shit, right? I’ll be dead. _

_At least then I’ll be dead and honest._

_You know, it’s been six fucking years since I last got to kiss you. It was the last week of winter, do you remember that? You were twenty and I had just turned nineteen and I’d just lost that canning factory job and there were no new jobs to be had just yet so I spent a lot of time hanging around at home making a nuisance of myself. It was the last winter you ever stayed with us before striking out on your own to live in that run-down tenement. I remember how we waited until my family went out, my parents to work and my sisters to school, and then we fooled around for hours in that ancient, cramped bed. I can still hear how it would creak and groan under the weight of us. How you’d get impatient and call me names when I teased. You always liked it when I teased, don’t fucking lie to me about that. I’m a dead man, remember, I won’t stand for it._

_I don’t know why I’m telling you things you already know. I guess just to remind myself that it was real. That it happened, that it’s not just a figment of my fevered imagination._

_It was like one day a wall came down and that was it. You moved out of my parents’ house and we decided without ever talking about it that it was done, that it was just kids stuff best left to the past. I’m not gonna sit here and pretend that I’ve been pining after you for all these years because I haven’t. I haven’t, Steve. Or if I was, I guess I didn’t really get it all the way, didn’t look at it dead on and see it for what it was. Maybe I just got so used to that ache in my chest every time you were around, like perpetual fucking sympathy pains, that I didn’t know there was any other way to be._

_You’re not in pain anymore, not like you always used to be, but that ache is still right there, lodged deep into my chest. It’s funny how almost dying makes you understand parts of yourself that you didn’t even know were there._

_Don’t you fucking dare let this letter keep you from being happy. It would be just like you to take this and then go and convince yourself that you should live a lonely, miserable life in penance, and for what? For lost love? Spare me your Catholic guilt, Rogers, you know I’ve never had an ounce of patience for it._

_I want you to live. That’s all I really want. Everything else, that’s just extra. That’s bonus. I want you to live and I want you to do it right. No half-assing it._

_Marry Agent Carter if that’s what you want. Don’t worry, I’ve seen the way she looks at you. She’ll forgive you for being a schmuck. God knows I always have._

_I’m running out of paper and my hand’s getting cramped so I guess I should wrap this up. It feels like I used up a whole lotta words to say nothing much at all._

_I love you. That’s the important part, I guess. That’s all I really needed to say. I’m so fucking in love with you, you miserable shit._

_So please just do this one thing for me: live._

.

Natasha shows up in a sleek, black Audi at 7 AM sharp. Steve and Sam pile into the back seat of her car, trying their best not to rumple their suits as they go.

“Good morning, fellas,” Natasha says. “Can I interest you in some coffee? A pastry? Some Irish whisky to pop into your coffee, maybe?” 

“I’m not _that_ nervous,” Steve says, reaching for the coffee cup marked ‘Rogers.’ “Did you get a bear claw?” 

Natasha tosses the pastry bag backwards to him wordlessly. 

“Don’t eat all of the bear claws, I know where you sleep, Cap,” Sam warns. 

“I don’t need that much sleep, remember?” Steve says, taking a huge, pointed bite of his pastry. 

“I can’t tell. Does this mean he _is_ nervous or does he really just delight in being this annoying at 7 AM?” Sam says, turning to address Natasha. 

“Both,” Natasha says, as she pulls away from Sam’s apartment and accelerates, forcing both of them to settle down and sit back for fear of losing their coffees. 

Sharon is waiting for them in front of the courthouse, wearing a conservative navy dress with a brown leather bomber thrown over it that looks out of place among all of the people in neat suits milling around her. 

“Is that trial-appropriate?” Natasha says as she steps out of the car, giving Sharon a pointed up and down that Sam and Steve share long-suffering eyerolls over. 

“I’m not at work, Nat, you couldn’t get me into a suit if you tried,” Sharon says. 

“But I could get you out of one, right?” Natasha tosses back. 

“Maybe I should’ve said yes to the whisky,” Steve gripes. “Can we save the flirting for later, please?” 

Sharon smiles, tucking a hand into the crook of Steve’s elbow. “On a scale from one to ten, how nervous are you?” Sharon says, leaning in close so that the crowd of people flanking them can’t hear. 

Steve takes in a deep, shuddering breath and tucks his hands inside his pockets so no one will see them tremble. “Clocking in at about a twenty, maybe. Have you spoken to Bucky’s lawyer yet?” 

“Who, Bernie? Yeah, she’s probably going through last minute details with Barnes right now. She’s the best defense attorney I know, Steve. If anyone can pull this through, it’s her,” Sharon says. 

She’s right. Steve knows she’s right. Just like he knows that Bernie’s defense strategy, including her decision to keep Steve off the witness stand, is the right call. She’ll do better to rely on the strength of the hard evidence. HYDRA kept far too many detailed files on the Winter Soldier to absolve them of any real culpability in his crimes. 

Besides, Steve’s too close to this and everyone knows it. He’s made enough of a spectacle of this trial so far; he doesn’t need to make it any worse. But that doesn’t stop the anxiety from clawing its way through Steve’s gut. 

“You’ve done all you can do for him, Steve,” Sharon says. “The rest is up to them.” 

“But what if it’s not enough?” Steve asks, blowing out a breath. 

Sharon shoots him a quelling look. “What good does asking that do you? Aunt Peggy was right, you _are_ overdramatic. Stop getting ahead of yourself.” 

“Do I do that?”

“Yeah, Rogers. You do that.” 

“Hey,” Steve says, stopping them just short of the courtroom doors. “Speaking of Peggy. I have something for you.” He reaches a hand into his breast pocket and pulls out a neatly folded piece of paper and holds it out. 

Sharon’s eyes widen. “The drawing? Are you sure?” 

“You didn’t get to see her like this. The way I drew her in that portrait. But I did. So yeah, Sharon, I’m sure,” Steve says, closing her fingers around the paper. 

Sharon ducks her head, tucking the drawing into a pocket inside her leather jacket. “Thank you,” She nudges him in the side. “Now come on, let’s go find the rest of your team.”

“My team?” Steve asks, “what do you mean my team -- ”

Steve comes to a sharp stop. 

There’s a cluster of people standing in the aisle on the defense side. There’s a beautiful older white woman with greying temples and a crooked nose, the kind of crooked that you only get from breaking it in a fight. Steve recognizes her from photos as Monty’s daughter, Jackie Falsworth. There’s a Japanese girl that can’t be any older than twenty-five with black hair braided and wrapped around her head like a crown, and cheeks that dimple as she smiles. She can’t be anyone but Jim’s granddaughter, Leia -- Steve would know that smile anywhere. There’s Antoine Triplett and that’s a relief as much as it is a comfort; he can’t keep losing family to HYDRA’s efforts. 

Standing smack dab in the middle of them all are Dum Dum and Dernier. They’re worn and grey but standing tall nonetheless, and grinning at him like they’ve just pulled off another one of their best pranks. 

Dum Dum turns to Dernier. “Look at this chump. Can you believe he grew a beard after all that griping in the middle of fucking Bastogne about rationing the shaving cream?” 

Dernier shakes his head sadly. “I always knew fame would go to his head one day.” 

Steve’s striding down the aisle as fast as his legs can take him and before he knows it, he’s got them both wrapped in a tight hug, fingers clutching tightly at the heavy tweed of Dum Dum’s jacket even as Dernier tucks his head into the hollow of Steve’s throat. 

There are cameras going off all around them. They ignore it. 

“You didn’t think we’d miss this, did you?” Dum Dum says. “You’re even dumber than I thought, kid. C’mon. You know he’s ours too, right?” 

Steve shakes his head. He should’ve known. The Howling Commandos were Bucky’s before they were ever Steve’s. 

Dernier claps Steve on the arm as he pulls away. “Come on, Cap. Time to take our seats and get this show on the street.” 

Dum Dum huffs. “You only say it wrong to annoy me.”

“I do no such thing, Timothy,” Dernier says, tossing Steve a conspiratorial wink. Dum Dum just groans. 

Jesus Christ, has he missed them. 

They sit down on the hard, wooden bench, flanking Steve on either side like they’re his ninety-eight year old bodyguards. 

A door opens in the back and everyone who was still standing sits quickly and goes dead silent. The judge enters and takes her seat as the jury files in. Bernie enters the room from the back followed rapidly by a cluster of guards. The silence turns to a low, steady buzz as Bucky enters the room. 

The last time Steve saw Bucky, he’d chopped all his hair off in a mockery of his wartime haircut. Now, it’s grown down past his ears again and it looks greasy even from a distance. His face is covered in stubble and there are deep, dark circles under his eyes, even as the garishly bright jumpsuit makes him look even more washed out and pale. He looks hollowed out, like a walking, breathing corpse. He looks like he hasn’t been sleeping much. He probably hasn’t. 

Hell, it’s not like Steve can talk. 

Bucky’s gaze locks onto Steve’s across the room with that sniper-sharp focus and holds it. 

For a second, nothing happens. Steve imagines that he can feel every inch of the distance between them but then there it is, a small uptick around the corners of Bucky’s lips, the faintest hint of a smile. 

Something in Bucky’s gaze warms and then he’s shaking his head, rolling his eyes pointedly. 

Steve knows that expression better than anything, for all that he hasn’t seen it in seventy-odd years. He’s seen it in back alleys and barrooms, in trenches and on battlefields, and in a tiny, cramped bedroom a whole lifetime away. 

It says: you already know I’ll follow your dumb ass anyways.

There’s a tension that’s been winding its way up Steve’s spine for days but as Bucky takes his seat next to Bernie and the judge starts the proceedings, Steve finally relaxes, slumping in his chair and letting Dum Dum and Dernier bolster him on either side. Dernier leans over and grabs a hold of Steve’s hand in his, tugging it close like a lifeline. 

“Overemotional Frenchie,” Dum Dum grumbles, but he’s reaching for Steve’s other hand anyways, creating a tether that pulls all three of them together. The Commandos always did know how to put forward an united front. 

There’s still a trial to get through, sure, but for the first time all morning, Steve lets himself believe that they’re gonna win. 

That they’re gonna be okay.

.

MakeProgress @makeprogress  
After a long, grueling week of trial, a decision should be made soon on the Winter Soldier case.

MakeProgress @makeprogress  
For all of our Deaf & HoH followers, we’ll have a transcript of the trial up within an hour of the decision. 

MakeProgress @makeprogress  
BREAKING. Barnes declared Not Guilty on all charges. Further inquiries into HYDRA to follow. 

MakeProgress @makeprogress  
Don’t worry, we didn’t forget. Here’s that transcript for you: http://tinyurl.com/98ek5

.

[How the Internet Won the Winter Soldier Trial (2015, January 18). Time Magazine. Retrieved from http://time.com.]

The sound of a pin dropping would’ve resonated in the courtroom the day the jury declared their findings on the Winter Soldier trial. Captain Steve Rogers, flanked on either side by wartime brothers Sergeant Timothy Dugan and Corporal Jacques Dernier, was at the edge of his seat and white as a sheet. Fortunately for Captain Rogers, such worry was in vain. 

The defense, deftly played out by Ms. Bernadette Rosenthal, relied heavily upon the leaked SHIELD files on the Winter Soldier. She invited the court to perform a rigorous analysis of the HYDRA brainwashing and torture techniques that Sergeant Barnes was made a victim of. Ms. Rosenthal reminded the court of Sergeant Barnes’s stellar service record and his well-earned reputation for heroism during the Second World War. She challenged both the court and the audience at home to ask themselves, given the evidence at hand, would they really have acted any differently from Barnes? Or is it possible that, under the right circumstances, anyone could have been the Winter Soldier? 

The prosecution offered up weak counter arguments attempting to call the veracity of the leaked SHIELD files into question but failed to make an impact equal to that of Ms. Rosenthal’s defense. Ultimately, it was not a surprise to those in the audience when the jury finally declared Sergeant James Barnes Not Guilty on all charges. A subsequent inquiry into the discovery of any remaining HYDRA cells will be spearheaded by the FBI. 

We’ve discussed the power of social media and the Internet many a times in recent years, particularly on the heels of a wave of reform-driven political protests at home and abroad. It can be difficult to sift through the wealth of information -- both true and false -- and arrive at a sound conclusion as to who exactly is responsible. But it’s undeniable that much like in the aftermath of the SHIELD/HYDRA leak, the Internet was pivotal in making sure that the truth was known. Well-used hashtags on Twitter such as #CapisforAllofUs and #SaveBarnes stand as a testament to those efforts. 

Part of it comes down to this: people love a good love story. Especially when it’s a provocative one. People love it or they love to hate it -- and make no mistake, there were those who hated it. There were protesters picketing the court house calling for Captain Rogers’ resignation and Sergeant Barnes’ execution, decrying them as anti-American. As contrary as it sounds, this bad press turned out to be good press. The louder the anti-Barnes contingency got, the harder the pro-Barnes contingency fought. 

We may be debating the moral merits of Captain Rogers’s decision to release the Howling Commandos’ letters for years to come, but we won’t debate how effective the decision was. 

It was a decision that saved Barnes’ life. It probably doesn’t hurt that it was a decision that helped Rogers keep a seventy-two year old promise. Captain America remains, as ever, a man of his word.

.

_Buck -- I'm only writing this because Jim was giving me the evil eye when I said I wasn't gonna._

_I wasn’t gonna write a letter because we're gonna live through this to the finish -- I won't see any other end to this war but that. You and me, we're going home._

_You keep looking at me like I’m breaking your heart and Buck, you gotta know that that’s the last thing I want. ~~How the fuck was I supposed to know~~ I didn’t know your heart was mine to break in the first place. You never said. But I guess that was stupid of me. There’s a lot we never said that maybe we should’ve. I guess that’s what we get for being dumb kids, huh? _

_I love you, you know. Maybe that’s a selfish thing for me to go and say now, what with everything that’s happened. Maybe I’ve always been a little more selfish than I’d like to admit._

_I know that things aren’t right between us right now, but there’s gonna be time later to figure it out. I don't care if you'd say it's foolish of me to think that. It's my damn letter and that’s the goddamn truth of it._

_If I can promise you one fucking thing in this world, I promise you this: you will have your safe homecoming._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to osmia and radialarch for beta-ing! The final part will be a coda so I'll probably get it up a little quicker this time.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > Rogers and Barnes are the freaking Bermuda Triangle of PDA. 
> 
>   
> The anatomy of a happily ever-after, guest starring the Howling Commandos and John Oliver. 

**gotham** ist

PHOTO: Everyone in Brooklyn has seen Captain America make out with his boyfriend.

Apparently, Captain America is the new Jake Gyllenhaal.

Sorry, I had to get up to shut my kitchen window --- you never know when a bald eagle might decide to fly in and strike me down just for typing those words out.

If you believe the rumors, Captain America and his boyfriend have locked lips publicly in all five boroughs several hundred times over. Somehow, there’s never any photographic evidence. Given how many people have a camera phone in New York (ie: a Lot), you can’t exactly blame a guy for being suspicious. I doubt that there’s a single square inch in the whole of New York that’s not been covered by someone’s camera phone.

Rogers and Barnes are the freaking Bermuda Triangle of PDA.

It’s been about a year since Cap leaked the Howling Commandos’ letters, revealing that his infamous brotherhood with Sergeant Barnes was totally not brotherly at all. The pair have yet to approach the press since, though, and now everyone and their mother wants to claim ownership of the latest hot gossip.

So, what I always assumed had happened was this: every time two white guys who vaguely resembled Rogers and Barnes were spotted holding hands or getting dinner or doing anything that could possibly be construed as couple-y, every New Yorker within a five mile radius suddenly found themselves convinced that they were in the presence of Brooklyn’s favorite sons.

I was proven wrong on Friday night when I saw the two of them exiting the G train a couple of cars ahead of me at Classon Avenue. They were bundled up against the 18°F weather in heavy, bulky coats like the rest of us, holding hands and weaving through a crowd of people, but it was undeniably Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes.

I’m sorry, all. I thought you were lying but I get it now. You really can’t mistake those two for anyone else in person. Not when you’ve had their faces staring up at you from history textbooks and political ads all through your childhood and well into your college years.

As luck would have it, just as I managed to fumble with my phone and take a picture, the platform had already cleared and they were long gone, leaving me with nothing but a blurry, out of focus shot of the Classon platform.

The freaking Bermuda Triangle, indeed.

Toro Raymond in Arts and Entertainment on January 12, 2016.

 **STEVE ROGERS** **BUCKY BARNES** **SUBWAY** **PDA**

 **3 Comments** Gothamist  
Cassie Lang • 12 Minutes Ago  
Wait, does Captain America go to Pratt?? Has anyone who goes there seen him around?  
2 △ ▽ • Reply • Share

Billy Kaplan • 15 Minutes Ago  
Okay, this is gonna seem totally creepy (because it is) but I was on the G train with them and it was kind of hard not to pay attention. They were huddled near the doors to the train together, pressed close chest to chest, and Bucky had his hands shoved inside the front pockets of Steve’s coat. I was just on the other side of the glass partition from them so it was hard not eavesdrop and anyways, it really was like they were in their own little world.

I’m not going to transcribe what was said word for word but apparently Bucky likes a) cracking Waiting for Godot jokes about how the G train was late today and b) calling Captain America a schmuck for accidentally leaning against the train doors, both of which are pretty great, honestly.

New life goal: find a guy who will look at me the way these two look at each other.  
7 △ ▽ • Reply • Share  
     Cassie Lang • 5 Minutes Ago  
     omg you’re totally kind of creepy but I also kind of love it?

 

.

“I’m fucking freezing, fuck this fucking city in January,” Sharon says, bursting through the front door of Steve and Bucky’s apartment with a handle of vodka in each hand, while Natasha follows closely behind with a bottle of wine tucked under each arm.

Somehow, they wound up buying way more liquor than food which Steve guesses is just what you should learn to expect when you stick five soldiers and two spies in one relatively modest living space for a day.

“Did you get the schnapps?” Dum Dum asks, fixing them both with a suspicious eye.

“You didn’t say schnapps, Dugan,” Natasha says, dumping the bottles of wine on the table where they’re all seated before shrugging off her coat.

“I did mean to say schnapps,” Dum Dum says, looking a little like he wants to press the matter but also like he’s not quite up to picking a fight with Natasha.

“No,” Sharon says flatly. “Absolutely not. Someone else go, it’s not gonna be me. I’m not going back out there. DC does not do cold like this.”

“I am old and decrepit,” Dernier says, folding his hands in front of him. “And an honored guest in this country, I’ll have you know.”

“You’ve been saying that since 1951,” Dum Dum mutters.

“I’ll go,” Steve says. “The bodega’s not that far.”

“You just want to get out of cooking,” Sam says. “You know that if we start without you, you’ll wind up sitting comfortably on the sidelines the whole time.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Sam,” Steve says, already shrugging on his flannel coat, doing his best to put on a convincing innocent face and failing pretty miserably at it.

“Oh, Steve, can you -- “ Bucky starts.

“Pack of Marlboros, I know,” Steve interrupts, bending down to brush his lips against Bucky’s cheek in a quick, perfunctory kiss. It’s become second nature, these days. He does it just because he can, because this is the sort of thing that they get to do now.

Bucky has other plans on his mind, though. He grabs hold of Steve’s collar and drags him down into a proper goodbye kiss. It’s an awkward angle, sure, but they’ve gotten pretty good at kissing in unusual places and in uncomfortable positions. Bucky does this sort of thing a lot, these days; it’s happened everywhere from subway cars to park benches to their very own kitchen filled to the brim with all of their friends.

There’s something gleeful and contrary about Bucky as he does it, like he still can’t quite believe that the universe is letting him get away with it so he keeps on pressing his luck, waiting to see when it’ll give.

The thing about their luck these days? Steve wouldn’t exactly bet against it.

“Keep it in your fucking pants, Sarge,” Dum Dum says, but he reaches over and flicks at Bucky’s ear in jest to soften the blow of it.

“You’re lucky I don’t hit old men,” Bucky says, making a face and scrunching his nose up at Dum Dum just like he used to with his sister when they’d fight over chores. Or just like he used to with Dum Dum whenever they fought over who got the last cigarette, come to think of it.

Dernier heaves a loud sigh. “Am I having another war flashback? Are we in Belgium? I don’t think there’s any mud in my boots, but most days I really can’t tell.”

“So, these are the famous Howling Commandos,” Sam says dryly.

“The one and only,” Steve says. “Can you believe they gave us explosives?”

“No,” Sam says. “I really, really can’t.”

Dum Dum clears his throat meaningfully. “ _Schnapps_.”

Sharon unwinds her scarf and plops into a chair with a thud, raising both eyebrows pointedly at Steve as if to say, ‘your turn, asshole.’

Steve holds his hands out in a gesture of surrender. “Okay, okay. I’m going.”

Steve pockets his keys and pushes himself out the front door and down the stairs into the street before he can let himself get distracted any further. It’s a little foolish and old-fashioned, maybe, but it just feels so damned good to see all the people he cares about most under one roof.

The wind hits smack him in the face the second he’s out in the street. Steve knows that it’s gotta be love that keeps him in New York at this time of year. He could probably live another hundred years and still never get used to this aching, dry cold, and the way it blows right through you and leaves you feeling hollowed out no matter how many layers you’ve piled on. It’s a good thing the bodega is barely a block away -- it’s a real relief to duck into the door and make his way towards the back, where the heat is the most concentrated.

Steve grabs the nearest bottle of schnapps and makes for the cashier. There’s only one person at the register, a blonde girl who looks no older than nineteen or twenty with chipped black nail polish and a name placard that simply reads KAROLINA.

She’s got her head buried in a book when Steve sets the bottle of schnapps down on the countertop. It’s a thick book with a colorful cover, covered in dragons; one of the Harry Potter books, probably. Whatever it is, Karolina looks completely involved in it.

“Could I get a twenty-pack of Marlboros, please?” Steve asks.

“Sure thing,” Karolina says, still not looking up from her book as one hand reaches up to pick up the carton of cigarettes from the shelf. “That’ll be -- holy shit!”

“About thirty bucks, right?” Steve asks. He tucks both hands in his pockets; it’s an anxious, reflexive gesture that has him bracing for the worst. The good thing about New York is that most people are pretty willing to look him in the eye and pretend like they really don’t give a shit who he is. It’s pretty rare that he has a run-in like this. Usually, it’s even odds whether or not the run-in will be good or bad.

He’s gotten a little more bad than good lately, though. He’s been having a good day. He’s not really in the mood for a fire and brimstone lecture.

“Yeah, it’s $28.50,” Karolina says. “Um. Do you live around here?”

“Yeah. You’re new, right?”

“Just started this week. Not the best job in the world but not the worst, though, right?”

Steve hums in assent. He spent most of the ‘30s working for a grocery store in Flatbush. It was good work for him back then -- solid, steady money but nothing so demanding that he couldn’t take a day off every so often when he got sick. It was dull as shit, though. He guesses that’s why she brought the book in.

Karolina hands over his change, so Steve picks up the bottle and Bucky’s cigarettes and makes for the door.

“Wait,” Karolina calls out. When Steve turns around, her eyes have gone wide; she’s more surprised than he is by the words that flew out of her mouth. “You’re okay, right? You and Barnes, you’re good?”

“What?”

“It’s just that…” Karolina starts, twisting her hands together nervously. “It’s not the sort of thing you hear about too often. You know, people like us getting the impossible happily ever after? It’s, uh. It’s nice to think about, I guess. That it can happen.”

 _People like us._ It doesn’t take a lot of puzzling out to figure what she’s getting at but for all of Bucky’s egregious PDA, there’s still something about being asked straight out that takes a little more getting used to.

The sharp wind from outside is coming in through the cracks under the door but Steve feels himself warm in spite of it. “Yeah, uh. We’re good. Karolina? We’re really good.”

Steve gives her a small smile and then pushes the door wide open, slipping out into the cold.

The apartment is warm and bright and well on its way to smelling of Irish Lamb Stew when Steve nudges his way back inside. Sharon, Nat and Dum Dum are clustered around a corner of the table playing quarters with a bottle of wine, which is such a bad idea that it had to be Dum Dum’s. It’s backfired on him, though -- from the look of things, he’s losing very, very badly. Dum Dum groans and drops his head into his hands as Natasha lands a quarter in the glass with a swift, easy toss, leaning back in her chair with a satisfied grin.

Bucky and Sam are slowly drifting around each other in the kitchen, cutting a line across the floor as they move from cutting board to stove top and back again, all while Dernier supervises. Judging from the wide, expansive gestures from the two former Commandos, they’re trying to sell Sam on one of their favorite old war stories while the three of them cook.

Sam’s eyes have gone wide in disbelief and Bucky isn’t even trying to hide the smirk curling around the edges of his lips, so Steve can already guess how the war story is going. Dernier has a habit of embellishing the details so that even the simplest mission can grow wilder and more unwieldy with each new telling.

Whenever Dernier tells a story about the war, the number of explosives present for the mission always seems to multiply exponentially. It doesn’t matter that Dernier is stooped and grey and often needs to be propped up with pillows under his feet. He still gets that same old gleam in his eyes whenever he’s talking about all the havoc he used to wreak with a few well-planned diversions and some Comp B.

In a couple of minutes, he’ll forget to speak English altogether and while Sam speaks at least three languages, Steve’s pretty sure that French isn’t one of them.

Bucky’s always been able to weave a good tale with the best of them, though. It’s the sort of thing that comes from having three younger sisters. Becca used to clamor for a bed-time story from her big brother, often long after she got too old for it. Bucky always indulged her anyways because he just couldn’t help himself, not when it came to his little sisters. With a sharp eye for the right details and an earnestness that couldn’t be faked, Bucky would sit by Becca’s bedside and tell her about his day, plucking glory from thin air and finding adventure in even the most ordinary of errands. And he never, ever lied -- that was the trick that always kept Becca asking.

He’s quieter these days and a little less likely to start humming off the cuff or throw in increasingly elaborate metaphors like he used to, but he still makes eye contact and holds it, always so aware of his audience. It’s a subtle, little thing but Steve knows exactly where to look, so he doesn’t miss the way Bucky tracks the lines in Sam’s face, checking for the hint of a smile or for the shift that could mean attention has been lost.

There’s something reassuringly present about the motion; how clearly Bucky wants Sam to enjoy this ridiculous story that Dernier cooked up speaks to a progress that Steve didn’t even know how to hope for a year ago.

Bucky’s gaze catches Steve watching him from the doorway and he rolls his eyes exaggeratedly in Steve’s direction, making a little ka-boom movement with his hands that confirms Steve’s suspicions.

Steve sets the bottle of schnapps down next to his keys on the sideboard, taking a minute just to watch them all. A shout and then a cheer breaks out from the corner; Natasha’s just won at quarters again. Sam and Dernier’s heads are bent close together over the stove top, deep in conversation. Steve is so caught up in the moment, in watching them, that he almost doesn’t see Bucky breaking away from the others to join Steve in the foyer.

Bucky gives Steve a small, crooked grin as he bumps their shoulders together. “We did pretty alright for ourselves, huh, Rogers?”

Steve grabs hold of Bucky’s hand, tangling their fingers together, reveling in the small, warm reassurance that is Bucky’s palm pressed into his.

“You know what? We really did.”

 

.

[INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT: LAST WEEK TONIGHT 1/17/16 FT. SPECIAL GUEST STAR CAPTAIN STEVEN GRANT ROGERS, AKA CAPTAIN AMERICA]

[INTERIOR]

Captain Rogers and John Oliver sit facing each other in a non-descript office. Captain Rogers has foregone the traditional Army service uniform for a tailored, dark green suit. He still has the beard that he was seen sporting during the Winter Soldier trial.

JO: Now, uh. I just have to ask before we get started. Are you _certain_ that you’re not lost?

CR: Should I be?

JO: We don’t usually do interviews on this show. I mean, there was this one time with Jane Goodall and a banana but that was a very, _very_ different situation from this.

CR: Wait, so, this _isn’t_ the Daily Show?

[CR stands up as if to leave]

JO: I knew it! I knew you were lost!

[Both laugh. CR sits back down.]

CR: Truthfully, I’ve been a fan of your show for a long time, John.

JO: I hope Colbert’s watching this. He’s going to be so jealous.

[Both laugh again.]

JO: In all seriousness, though, Captain Rogers -- why here? Why now? You’ve not spoken publicly since the trial, which as I’m sure we’re all aware, was well over a year ago now.

[CR raises a hand to his hair, pushing it back.]

CR: You know, a lot of good people went to bat for us during the trial. They didn’t have to but they did. I guess I figured that it was about time that I thank them for it.

JO: And by them, you mean the Internet.

CR: Well, maybe not the _whole_ Internet.

JO: You're right, of course, the Fox News homepage isn’t your biggest fan, no.

[CR shifts in his chair; he’s warming up to the conversation better now that it’s started.]

CR: I didn’t -- you know, I didn’t expect any of it. The outpouring of support, the campaigns -- I hoped for it but I didn’t expect it. It was….overwhelming. It still is.

JO: I imagine it’s been -- you know, I was going to say, I imagine it’s been a trying past few years for you but that’s not entirely accurate, is it? I mean. Is there any point in your life that you can look to and say, ‘Yeah. You know, maybe that wasn’t completely and utterly horrendous?’

[CR laughs]

CR: You know, age five was alright. I think I remember that being okay. No, uh. In all seriousness...it would be this past year. This past year’s been the best of my life.

JO: You know I have to do it. I have to ask since I’ve got you sitting here. Sergeant Barnes -- do you think he’d say the same?

CR: I don’t know. Age five wasn’t so bad for him either, it could be a tough call. You’d have to ask him.

JO: Will I get to?

CR: Probably not. _He’s_ more of a Daily Show fan.

JO: Damnit. Foiled again! So, may I ask what’s next for you two?

[CR looks down in thought before turning to face the camera once more. He smiles.]

CR: I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so so so so much to osmia and radialarch for beta-ing and putting up with all of my emotional crises over this story. and thank you so much to all of the readers. your feedback has been incredible. this fic was a huge, adventurous departure from my usual fare and i've really really appreciated all of your kind words.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Winter Soldier Trial](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3461147) by [paperflower86](https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperflower86/pseuds/paperflower86)




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